Like all trending diets the paleo diet is also a big business opportunity. And we from Pack of Packs do want more paleo oriented/ -friendly businesses in Hong Kong as long as they offer decent products and services. But in a free market whenever something thrives the snake-oil swindlers crawl out of their lairs to make easy money.

Remember when vegetarianism took off in the late 90s and suddenly more products graced shelves prompting buzzwords like "natural", "all-natural", "whole", "fresh", "low-fat", "sun-kissed"? Then gluten became something to watch out for and the stores were filled with gluten-free versions of everything. People had to wisen up and develop an eye to sift chaff from the wheat (pun intended) by reading food labels, taking each health claim with a grain of salt and staying informed.

The Hong Kong paleo market is a new but becoming more lucrative: Like most followers of health diets paleo people are usually willing to pay more for high quality food. And like its bigger brother in the US there is always the chance that questionable products will want to enter the market. Hong Kong has witnessed its fair share of unscrupulous companies selling questionable products to unsuspecting consumers, lying about their products composition for a bigger profit margin. There will be food companies which if left unchecked will ride the paleo money wagon too hard without any regard what those actions will do to the wagon or the people

The basic rule of economics is that you find (or create) a demand and then you satisfy that demand with your supply. So what would paleo people want? Of course it would be a paleo version of the food they had to give up with its absence having left a tiny whole in their culinary hearts. For many people (me included) that would be bread. There are many amazing paleo bread recipes out there. But the gift of baking has eluded me and has been entirely passed down to my younger sister. Additionally like many paleo people I prefer to stay low to moderate carb as I still suffer from the "once you pop you cannot stop" syndrome aka recovering sugar junkie.

How excited was I when I discovered that one of my favourite health stores in Hong Kong, Just Green, was selling Paleo Bread by the company Julian Bakery. It seemed to be a decent paleo product: It said it was " only 1 g net carb" per slice, ""gluten-free", "non-gmo" and would allow you to "stay in ketosis". The ingredients list seemed straightforward and consisting of easy available paleo ingredients like coconut flour..

Not only would low carb paleo people benefit from this but also people who turned to the paleo diet because they had diabetes, celiac disease or other auto-immune diseases.

Unfortunately Julian Bakery got a dent in its integrity when complains were raised concerning their other low-carb breads especially targeted towards diabetics. I first stumbled over the blog post by Jeff Roaderick who is a Type 1 diabetic himself. His friend contacted Julian Bakery because she believed that their claim was too good to be true as Roaderick 's blood glucose levels sky-rocketed after having eaten some of the bread. Type 1 diabetics NEED to know how much carbs they are consuming as it affects their blood glucose level and that determines their insulin dosage. Julian Bakery replied that indeed the net carb is so low that "85% of Diabetics can eat our bread with no Insulin", indicating Roaderick belongs to those unlucky 15 percent.

Here are the major findings from that Exova lab testing of the SmartCarb #1 bread:

Total carbohydrates are 43% higher than claimed (13 vs. 23)Dietary fiber is 50% less than claimed (12 vs. 6)Net carbs are 17 times greater than claimed (17 vs. 1)Protein, like fiber, is 50% less than claimed (12 vs. 6)

Just out of curiosity I went through my pantry to look at the nutritional facts of my nutiva coconut flour and it says that 2 tbs of coconut flour already contain 3 g of net carbs. Getting a slice of paleo bread to 1 g net carb is indeed not that easy.

Another blogger Jimmy Moore, a well known low carber in the paleo scene, reported that FDA investigation found ‘Significant Violations’ in Julian Bakery Paleo Bread. I went to the FDA site and under the section "Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations" found that at the end of this July the FDA has issued a warning letter towards Julian Bakery (which by the way is also using the name “Paleo, Inc.” and owning multiple trademarks incorporating “Paleo” or “Primal” in the name). Here are key passages

Your Paleo Bread product is misbranded [...] because the labeling bears a nutrient content claim, but does not meet the requirements to make the claim. [...]

Specifically, your website at http://www.julianbakery.com/ bears the claim “high protein,” but, according to the product labeling, does not meet the criteria to bear this claim in accordance with 21 CFR 101.54(b).

Your Paleo Bread product does not qualify to make a "high protein" claim because your website and the product label for your Paleo Bread, which bears the website, declare 7 g of protein per 43 gram serving, which is less than 20% of the DV for protein per 50 g RACC.

[...] The above violations outlined in this letter are not meant to be an all-inclusive list of deficiencies in your product or their labeling.

What do I take away from this? Same thing I took away from the big China milk scandal in 2008: A healthy dose of scepticism concerning packaged mass-produced foods cannot hurt even if they are "paleo". Unless you haven't made it yourself or know and trust the person behind the product, you'll never know... unless you are as persistent as Deborah Krueger and send products to a lab.

So is Julian Bakery's Paleo Bread really paleo? Assuming that the ingredients lists are correct and there is no other hidden nastiness, HEALTHY paleo people who have achieved their maintenance weight should have no nutritional issues with eating Julian Bakery Bread once in a while. View it like a treat or maybe grey-area Wonder Bread. But if you suffer from an auto-immune disease like diabetes enjoy at your own risk as you can still belong to the 15% of diabetics who will have to increase their insulin after the consumption of Paleo Bread. If you still do want to give it a try feel free to let us know your thoughts.

Yet this is not only about how low carb or how paleo a loaf of bread is. With paleo still growing in Hong Kong we are pretty much starting with a clean slate. Our choices as paleo consumers have a bigger impact on the territory. We have the power to decide which paleo products are bound to stay. And we should want products from companies we can trust, which believe in being paleo. Companies who do not pimp up their labels or fudge the numbers of their nutritional values so that they can possibly charge us paleo premium prices like HKD 140 for a loaf of bread without any regard what false labelling can do to the health of some of their customers. In Germany we call companies like that rotten eggs. And rotten eggs are not really paleo.

*UPDATE 13.Oct'14: Julian Bakery informed me that they have taken the "high-protein" claim off their website. They also advised me not to believe in everything what is written on the internet and to do my own research. I have therefore re-edited this post keeping in mind that I have not yet done any hands-on research myself. Although I'm currently in the middle of another paleo project there will be a follow-up post concerning this matter.

We suggest doing your research first before blindly believing everything you read on the internet. Julian Bakery's Paleo products are 100% accurate. Many of our products are endorsed by the founder of The Paleo Diet Dr. Loren Cordain. Just because the FDA wanted the word "High Protein" taken off our site doesn't mean there is a problem with Paleo Bread. Our lab test validates are nutritional information and low carb claims.

Thanks for your prompt comment. I just want to say that I do not blindly believe everything I read on the internet. Yes, I follow Jimmy Moore's blog. Nevertheless I do not agree with everything he says, and same applies to Dr. Loren Cordain who endorses and makes profit with your products.

Also the FDA states in its warning letter to you: "The above violations outlined in this letter are not meant to be an all-inclusive list of deficiencies in your product or their labeling."

Having said that, you are right in suggesting that I should do my own research. I will check what is available with my little means and write about it accordingly. In case I go the subject testing route does your claim that "85% of Diabetics can eat our bread with no Insulin" also apply to the paleo breads?

In the meantime I will rewrite this post and try to clearly distinguish that most misbranding issues were with ca. 20 other breads like carb net zero bread. If the paleo bread will be among them remains to be seen.

Thank you for the kind comment and we really do care about our customers health and spend extra money lab testing all our products to ensure nutritional accuracy. I wish more companies posted their nutritional information online as software calculations of nutritional information can cause many issues.

Now the FDA letter written to us is actually NOT valid in any way as the mention of our Net Carb Carb Zero bread which is also lab verified did not tae into account insoluble fiber. Each gram of insoluble fiber counts as zero toward the calculation of calories and the FDA did not factor that in. We reminded them of this and sent them our lab verification here which states no zero and an equal fiber to carb ratio along with proper calories.

We are the largest online real food ingredient product company. We pride ourselves in making foods that promote optimal health and that keep consumers who are transitioning from a mainstream diet on track.

Our bread is specifically made for diabetics including Type 1 diabetics. The only bread we make that would be an issue for a diabetic is the honey Paleo Bread which contains 10 net carbs.

If you think about it our bread is basically just coconut and egg whites. Or Coconut, Almonds, and Egg Whites.

Thanks for hearing me out on this issue as our goal is to change the way people eat around the world and we know that it's crucial to consume accurate macros in order to reach your health goals. We have found the only way to do this is to lab test our products for accurate nutritional information.

Brock in HK

9/10/2014 15:31:02

Lory - you've attracted the attack dogs. You must be doing something right! They found your post very quickly and posted against it straight away. Their robots are busy scouring the internet for this kind of criticism, and since they found it so quickly, the search algorithms must be finely tuned from much experience.

As for the Julian Bakery claims: the label for that product as posted on their website only makes one claim you dislike, which is the net carbs claim. Their current label says nothing about being high protein. The current website description has replaced that claim with the specific protein gram count per slice. It was the Just Green website description that made the high protein claim, so maybe they got their info from a stale product description. The 85% of diabetics claim seems to have been dropped on the latest packaging. Some of the various internet criticisms seem to be stale.

In any case, I hope the lesson that your readers take from this is that with any new product, one should first do some research, and then their own n=1 test. "85% of diabetics..." could still mean not you. If it doesn't work for you, despite what the label says it should do, don't consume it. The best way to get the message across to Just Green, as the HK retailer, is to let them know about your experience with the product and whether you will buy more or not. I would guess that they only want to sell what works so that people will buy more.

Did you try the bread in the end? How did things go? And most importantly, thanks for sharing your experience!

Thanks a lot for your feedback. As announced I will re-edit this post which will also address the points you have mentioned.

And I agree that we should be more aware of the products we consume. Being Paleo means eating real & healthy food and we it's each and everyone's responsibility to find out what that means for her or him particularly.

I'm indeed thinking about writing a review coupled with an n=1 experiment. Or ask people in ketosis to test it. Not sure if I should go so far as to have the Paleo bread lab tested which might take a while. But it would be really interesting to see the data.

If you ever decide to give Paleo bread a go let me know.

Reply

Mikayla

10/10/2014 11:03:51

This is a good read. I love that this post has healthy arguments about Paleo. To tell you frankly, I am really confused about Paleo because most information that I get from the web contradict themselves. I will bookmark your page to get some updates about this matter. Thanks Lory! :)

Hi Mikayla, thanks for your comment. I hope you'll be able to find the paleo diet which is right for you. My apologies, that I had to remove the link to your website but it looked like a generic filler/ clickbait website. Again sorry, if I was mistaken.